Christmas Baubles and Silver Tinsel
by Kate Marley
Summary: Prussia is decorating the Christmas tree in Germany's house in Berlin. Russia tries to help. RusPrus; trigger warning: Blood/minor injury.


_Written for Day 8 (Christmas tree) of aph-fanficchallenges' Hetalia Christmas Calendar on tumblr._

 _(There are hints to polyamory with PruAus as an additional relationship of Prussia's, but it's something you can easily not catch on to/ignore if that ship's not your cuppa.)_

* * *

"No, no, no, you don't need to hold the ladder while I climb into the attic! Thank you, but that's not necessary!" Gilbert hadn't known he was able to speak so fast.

Ivan had suggested holding the wooden ladder that lead to the attic in the detached house his brother Ludwig owned. Gilbert was telling the truth; it was unnecessary for Ivan to hold it, but it was also a kind offer. However, he was worried the big boy might break the wood if he held on to it too fast. Sometimes he just didn't manage to control his strength.

Gilbert himself wouldn't have had any problem to jump down from the attic; all that workout he did had to be good for _something,_ in the end. But he would have regretted damaging the cardboard boxes full of Christmas decoration he was about to gather from up there. Most of the fancier but also more fragile objects were his brother's anyway, and Ludwig certainly wouldn't appreciate them getting damaged.

The only parts of their Christmas decoration that were his, and his alone, were four boxes full of tinsel in red, silver, green and gold, carefully ironed for several decades. Those were his. They weren't easily breakable, thankfully, but tinsel wasn't manufactured in Germany anymore, so keeping it was an absolute necessity for him. No Christmas without tinsel.

Ludwig hadn't taken that much precaution with his own tinsel, probably because he had been able to buy it anew each year. In the GDR, that hadn't been so certain, and Gilbert had lamented every damaged strand of tinsel he had had to throw away over the years. Perhaps the decades-long shortage of goods was one reason why he had a tendency to cling to older possessions that Ludwig did not have. His brother had smiled at this attitude towards something as disposable as tinsel, but he had realised Gilbert had done the right thing when he had found he couldn't buy any more of it.

Gilbert went to the corner of the attic where all their Christmas decoration was stored, grabbed some of the neatly labelled boxes, and climbed down the ladder, fully loaded with probably more decoration than their tree could hold. That was the advantage of being orderly, Gilbert thought to himself: No long searches rummaging the attic; just going up there, taking the stuff you needed, and getting down again.

He had no idea how other people could suffer all the disorder in their own houses. Roderich, for example, called the mess in his own attic "creative chaos." Well then, perhaps the musician was more creative than him, but he, Gilbert, certainly spent less time in the attic than Roderich, looking for old stuff. In _his own_ attic. In Roderich's however ... He was too easily challenged by comments like "I bet you can't find this either," and he fell for that strategy of Roderich's _every single time._

The truth was, he actually quite liked tidying up other people's disorder. Then again, the truth also was that Roderich was particularly good at making use of that character trait of his. Luckily Ivan hadn't caught on to that yet.

"Can I help you with the boxes?" Ivan asked as soon as Gilbert had reached the lowermost steps of the ladder.

"No, it's fine," Gilbert said quickly. "They're quite safe in my grip. Let me carry them to the living room so we can decorate the Christmas tree together." _Precaution; precaution._ All in the name of precaution.

He brought the boxes in front of the living room door, lightly kicking it open with one shoe before he remembered _this_ was a thing he could actually have asked Ivan to do for him. Gilbert might be a bit overly precautious when it came to Ivan holding things for other people, but to assume he wouldn't be able to open a door without potentially damaging it seemed outright insulting.

Placing the boxes on top of the couch, Gilbert turned to the lushly green fir tree that stood in one corner of the room, making sure it was fixed correctly and ninety degrees vertical in the Christmas tree stand. It would be awful to realise they needed to readjust the tree _after_ they had started to decorate it.

That was when he heard a muffled crack. He turned around slowly, dreading what he would see.

Sure enough, Ivan was sitting on the couch, a cracked bauble in his hand. Blood was streaming from cuts to his skin, but his face didn't show any pain, just shock and surprise.

"Stay put," Gilbert commanded. "I'm going to fetch the first aid box." He rushed to the bathroom, grateful for his brother's and his own precaution. It was only seconds until he returned with it, kneeling in front of Ivan as he took his big hand in his smaller, paler ones, plucking the bauble's tiny shards out of the skin. Ivan still didn't show any signs of pain, just surprise and sadness.

There was a time when Gilbert had been worried that Ivan did lots of insane stuff, such as jumping from planes without a parachute, because he was _unable to feel pain._ Getting to know him better, Gilbert had realised that wasn't the case. It was rather that Ivan had felt immeasurable amounts of physical pain in his life, so it didn't seem important to him whether he inflicted more of it on himself or not. Superficial wounds such as the ones Gilbert was tending to now simply didn't seem worthy to warrant a reaction at all.

"Sorry," Ivan said in distress. "Sorry, I didn't mean to break it! I just wanted..."

"Shhh," Gilbert tried to calm him. "It's all right. It's just one bauble."

"But ... but it had these lovely flower ornaments printed on it..."

"Shhh," Gilbert said again. "Don't worry, I'll be able to fix this." He said it mainly to calm Ivan, but he realised he had made a mistake the moment Ivan's face lit up with hope.

"Really?" he said eagerly. "You can do that? That would be so wonderful ... It was so pretty..."

 _Well, fuck,_ Gilbert thought. Looked like he actually had to piece that goddamn bauble together now. That was going to be a pain in the ass.

"Sure!" he said out loud, bandaging Ivan's hand. "Hey, I'm an awesome engineer! Of course I can fix one little Christmas bauble!"

"Thank you, Gilbert." Ivan smiled at him, and this smile that wasn't eerie at all was almost worth the time he would spend in his workroom, trying to piece all those tiny shards together. _Almost._

"Well then, it's about time we start decorating, the tree, isn't it?" Gilbert suggested. He took another Christmas bauble, attempting to put it in Ivan's undamaged hand. He wasn't surprised as Ivan flinched, looking away from Gilbert.

"Hey, Ivan!" Gilbert said softly, trying to get Ivan's attention. "Vanya! Vanechka!"

"Hm?" Hesitantly, Ivan turned his eyes towards him.

"Just think of them as delicate flowers, okay?" Gilbert suggested. He had a vivid image in his mind; an image of Ivan caressing the flowers in the garden of Catherine Park in Tsarskoye Selo where the summer residence of the Russian tsars had been. That had been the first moment in which Gilbert had looked at him, thinking _Oh shit, he's cute!_ Granted, he had scolded himself the very next moment— _How can I even think that? He's so huge!_ —but somehow, the thought had stuck.

"Flowers?" Ivan blinked, pulling Gilbert out of his reverie.

"They're breakable, but you can hold them, just like you can hold the baubles," Gilbert said patiently. "You just need to be very careful. Do you think you can do that for me?"

Ivan nodded tentatively, stretching his palm out for Gilbert to place the bauble in it. He looked more like an oversized child than ever.

"There." He put the object in Ivan's hands. "And now go ahead and decorate the tree with me!"

While Ivan started to do just that, handling the baubles with particular care now, Gilbert went to a chest of drawers nearby and took a record from the lowest shelf. He put it on the old-fashioned record player his brother had to have bought in the ... what? Fifties? Sixties? He wasn't so sure about the peculiars of West German record player design.

As he put the needle down on the record, a classical recording of _Veni, veni, Emmanuel_ started to play. Ivan looked up from adorning the Christmas tree with yet another bauble.

"That's beautiful!" He tried out another smile. This time it came off quite crookedly, and Gilbert grimaced. Ivan raised both eyebrows.

"From Roderich?" he asked.

"Yes," Gilbert said grudgingly.

"You like it." It was a statement, not a question.

"I put it on because I thought _you_ 'd like it," Gilbert told him. "Classical music is your cuppa, not mine."

"You like it," Ivan repeated, and this time his smile was amused. Gilbert rolled his eyes.

"Fine, okay, I like it," he admitted. "But don't tell Roderich."

"I won't." He turned back to the Christmas tree, humming along as he continued to decorate it.

 _If you ever need someone to sing Christmas carols for you, shove the music book in his hands,_ Roderich had said as soon as Gilbert had told him Ivan would stay for Christmas— _their_ Christmas, not the Orthodox one—and it was true: Ivan's deep, vibrant singing voice was beautiful.

Gilbert smiled to himself as he went to the tinsel boxes. Glancing at the Christmas tree, he decided the silver tinsel would do this year: Ivan's choice of Christmas baubles was rather colourful. He put the box with it next to the tree, gently putting it over the branches Ivan had already decorated with baubles. When he reached for the higher branches, he suddenly felt a broad hand between his shoulder blades.

"Let me do this," Ivan said. "I can reach the higher branches without stretching, and I think there are enough baubles on the tree now anyway."

"All right," Gilbert agreed. "That's kind of you." He made a move to take more tinsel from the box in order to decorate the lower branches, but Ivan put an arm around his waist, holding him upright.

"That's the first time you said 'all right' when I suggested doing something for you today," he heard Ivan's deep voice above his ear.

"I just didn't want you to break something by accident and be unhappy about it." Gilbert gave a bitter laugh. "Worked out really well, eh?" He turned around, wrapping his arms around Ivan's shoulders. "Sorry, Vanya, I didn't want you to get distressed, but it didn't work."

"It's okay," Ivan said, resting his chin on Gilbert's head. Gilbert couldn't exactly claim he appreciated _this_ gesture, but he kept quiet about it. _Not the moment for complaints. Maybe later._

"I should be sorry," Ivan added. "I wish I wouldn't get distressed by tiny things like a broken bauble so fast."

 _So I won't need to piece the bauble together in the end?_ Gilbert thought to himself. _Thank goodness._

"No problem," he said out loud. "It's not your fault you've become like this."

"But it is my fault if I don't keep working on it," Ivan said, frowning. Gilbert didn't know what to reply to this, so he went to the box with the tree toppers.

"Come on, big boy," he said. "Pick one for me."

It had been the wrong decision. Gilbert realised that when Ivan held up a red tree topper with a striking similarity to the Soviet star. An abundance of emotions passed over his face in quick sequence, from hatred over yearning to confusion. His free hand clenched to a fist and unclenched again for several times, but the hand holding the tree top star didn't increase its pressure on the object.

In the end, nothing happened. Ivan placed the tree topper back in the box, picking a silver star instead. Gilbert gave an inward sigh of relief.

"The silver star matches better with the tinsel anyway," he said eventually.

"Yeah. The silver one fits better anyway."

* * *

 **Notes:**

The last German manufacturer of tinsel ceased its production in 2015. There's a Christmas sketch from 1978 (remastered in 1997) by famous German humourist Loriot (Vicco von Bülow, 1923-2011) in which grandfather Hoppenstedt—Prussian educated—complains about change with the words "There used to be more tinsel!" _(„Früher war mehr Lametta!")_ The German word for tinsel, _Lametta,_ is also used as an ironic term for numerous awards and decorations on the chests of military personnel. Both are reasons why I have Prussia hoard tinsel in this fanfic.

My voice headcanon for Ivan differs from his seiyuu's voice. Regardless, _White Flame_ is still my favourite Hetalia song.


End file.
